Akshay Bhatia has a charge that would make Arnie proud. He rallies from 5 down to win Bay Hill

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Akshay Bhatia missed a 30-inch par putt to fall five shots behind Sunday in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, angry enough to want to do something about it. What followed was a charge on the back nine at Bay Hill that would have made the King proud.

“You must play boldly to win,” was one of Palmer's famous quotes.

Bhatia was every bit of that. Four straight birdies got him into the mix. Two shots behind with three to play, he hit 6-iron to a dangerous pin on the par-5 16th that nearly went into the cup on the second bounce and set up a short eagle to stay in the game.

And then he outlasted Daniel Berger in the first playoff at Bay Hill since 1999 — three years before Bhatia was born — to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational in a stunning comeback.

“If he was up there watching, he's probably pretty proud of how that finished,” said Bhatia, wearing the red cardigan that goes to the winner of Palmer's tournament.

“Play bold — I think that was a big thing everyone knows of Mr. Palmer,” he said. “I could feel that energy and buzz. It was awesome. I'm very fortunate to win this tournament.”

Bhatia, who also took on the flag over the rock-framed water on the 18th in regulation and nearly pulled it off, closed with a 3-under 69 and won his third PGA Tour title, all of them in playoffs.

This was the biggest, a $20 million signature event that moves the 24-year-old into the top 20 in the world at the start of a big stretch in golf that concludes with the Masters next month.

Berger looked like he had this won, walking confidently after shots in building a four-shot lead at the turn. He lost the lead by missing a 7-foot par putt on the 17th hole and showed plenty of moxie just to get into the playoff with an up-and-down from 70 yards for par on the final hole for a 70.

They finished at 15-under 273.

Berger, who hit his tee shot into the right rough on the 18th in regulation, pulled his drive in the playoff and did well to hammer a 6-iron to the front edge of the green, 106 feet away. He rolled that to 7 feet below the hole, and his par putt to extend the playoff was weak and missed below the cup.

Bhatia played to the center of the green. He took two putts from just inside 30 feet for the win and the $4 million prize.

“Everyone knows when you show up to Bay Hill it's going to be a test,” Bhatia said.

He also felt like he had some of “Arnie's Army” on his side down the stretch, and there were moments the crowd was clearly in his favor, and opposed to Berger.

“No pressure,” one spectator yelled as Berger walked in for a putt just inside 15 feet for par in regulation that he holed to force the playoff. “Get in the water,” another spectator said on his putt.

Bhatia started the back nine with four straight birdies, one of them from just inside 60 feet on the 11th hole. There was a two-shot swing at the 13th when Bhatia holed a 10-foot birdie putt and Berger had a plugged lie in a bunker, facing a shot to the crispy green with water on the other side. He smartly played back toward the fairway and salvaged a bogey, his lead down to one shot.

The final hour turned electric on the par-5 16th with Bhatia's biggest shot. He said caddie Joe Greiner told him, “Just try to hit the best 6-iron of your life.”

“It was one of those professional pushes,” he said. “I wasn't trying to aim at the flag.”

Berger, who missed 18 months with a back injury after the 2022 U.S. Open and suffered a broken finger last August, was trying to become the first wire-to-wire winner at Bay Hill in 10 years.

“It's tough to win. It's tough to battle,” he said. “But I feel like I did a good job, and a shot here or there was the difference.”

That goes for Bhatia, too. He and Berger returned Sunday morning to finish the third round. Berger had a three-shot lead until the 18th hole, when he made bogey from the right rough and Bhatia made birdie when his 10-foot putt hung on the lip for just under 10 seconds and then dropped.

Berger's consolation prize, aside from the $2.2 million for finishing second, was earning a spot in the British Open and moving well into the top 40 in the world, which should make him safe to return to the Masters next month.

Cameron Young, who used to spend his winters in Orlando as a kid, played bogey-free for a 69 and tied for third with Ludvig Aberg (67).

Scottie Scheffler took another double bogey on the 18th hole — his second in as many rounds and his third double bogey in his last 19 holes at Bay Hill — for a 73. He tied for 24th. It was the first time since the U.S. Open last year that he failed to break 70 at a tournament.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Akshay Bhatia smiles as he holds the championship trophy after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Akshay Bhatia holds the championship trophy after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Daniel Berger reacts after making a putt on the 18th hole during the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Akshay Bhatia watches his shot on the 13th hole during the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Akshay Bhatia reacts after winning his playoff against Daniel Berger at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Daniel Berger reacts after his hit on the 18th hole during his playoffs against Akshay Bhatia at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Akshay Bhatia, right, reacts after winning his playoff against Daniel Berger at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Daniel Berger, right, greets Akshay Bhatia on the 16th hole during the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill golf tournament Saturday, March 7, 2026, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — For 21 years, Steve Fowler and Sam Wilson have performed together in a band on Memphis’ renowned Beale Street. And for the past decade, the men have been neighbors on a quiet, leafy avenue.

But as of Thursday, they will no longer cast the same ballot despite living across the street from each other.

That’s because Tennessee’s Republican-controlled legislature redrew the congressional district of Memphis, which has long enjoyed its own Democratic-leaning U.S. House seat. Now, the city is split into three Republican-leaning districts, its majority-Black population sliced up and bound to mostly white, rural and conservative communities along lines that branch away from Fowler and Wilson’s East Memphis neighborhood.

A line runs down the middle of the street, placing Fowler in the 8th Congressional District, which runs hundreds of miles to central Tennessee across a dozen counties. Wilson is zoned for the 9th District, which extends across most of the state’s southern border before curving up to encompass the largely white and affluent Nashville suburbs.

“I think it’s horrible,” said Fowler, who is white. “This isn’t just going to be bad for Black folks in Memphis, but poor whites in these new districts also aren’t going to get services. How are any of these congressmen going to serve all these different counties?”

The redraw was sparked by a ruling from the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court that may be a death knell for congressional representation of majority-Black Southern communities such as Memphis.

For 60 years, a provision of the landmark Voting Rights Act required mapmakers to prove they were not discriminating against racial minorities in how they drew districts, often leading to political boundaries that allowed some minority communities to vote for their preferred representative rather than having their vote diluted by white majorities surrounding them.

The rule had the greatest effect in Southern states, where neighboring Black and white communities remain highly polarized in partisan politics.

On April 29, the justices severely weakened that requirement, ruling that the way courts had handled it improperly injected racial matters into redistricting in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Republicans across the South immediately leaped at the chance to redraw their maps before the November elections to eliminate as many Democratic-held, majority-minority congressional seats as possible.

Tennessee’s legislature was the first in a GOP-controlled state to finalize a new map. But it is one of several Southern states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina among them — engaged in a broader partisan redistricting competition sweeping the country.

Republicans have long complained that the Voting Rights Act prevented them from doing to Democratic, majority-Black districts what Democrats in states they control do to conservative-leaning, white and rural areas — scatter their voters for partisan gain. That is what Tennessee Republicans did in their initial congressional map in 2021 to the state’s other large reservoir of Democrats in Nashville, where they did not have to step gingerly because that city is majority white.

“Tennessee is a conservative state and our congressional delegation should reflect that,” said Republican state Sen. John Stevens, who shepherded the bill for a new map that made all nine congressional districts solidly Republican.

Wilson, the Memphis musician who is Black, was less distraught by the carving up of his neighborhood for partisan purposes. He saw the move as just another trial facing the city after a surge of federal agents sent by President Donald Trump to combat crime and amid narratives about Memphis' safety from neighboring suburbs and Republican state lawmakers.

“It’s a hustling community. We’re going to make ends meet for our families,” Wilson said. “The legacy of Memphis is music and our civil rights history,” he said, adding the two were intertwined. “Hard times mean you’re going to try and find your gift. That’s what we do here; music in Memphis is a way of life.”

The Memphis district predates the Voting Rights Act. For at least a century, well before Congress acted to protect minority voting rights, Tennessee has believed it made sense for its metropolis on the Mississippi River to have its own U.S. House district. But since that law was passed in 1965, anyone who tried to split up the district for partisan gain could be sued and have the maps thrown out. Now, legal experts say that is not much of a risk.

Nonetheless, Democrats and civil rights groups are suing to block the map. The symbolism is especially sharp as the city is home to the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the motel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. When the legislature passed the new maps, Democrats and protesters shouted “hands off Memphis!” and waved signs accusing Republicans of bringing back Jim Crow.

“Memphis is not just any city; it holds a central place in the national story of our quest for racial justice in this country and how, over time, we have increasingly achieved civil, voting, and economic rights for all Americans,” said Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney general who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Black citizens protested, marched and died there for the right to vote.”

Memphis has faced dual stories in recent years. Billions of dollars in private investment and federal dollars have flooded into the area in recent years, but many local businesses still express concerns about a lagging regional economy.

Residents who spoke with The Associated Press expressed concerns about safety and public services but bristled at stereotypes about rampant crime. The twin stories are often on display in the river city, where pothole-filled streets run from empty storefronts to ornate mansion-filled neighborhoods and leafy college campuses only blocks away.

The city has long had a contentious relationship with the rest of the state, which voted for Trump in 2024 by a roughly 2-1 margin.

The conservative legislature in Nashville has clashed repeatedly with Memphis and accused its leaders of broad mismanagement. The legislature passed a law blocking many police overhaul efforts in Memphis that were put in place after the death of Tyre Nichols, an unarmed Black man, at the hands of city officers in 2023. It passed another measure seizing control of Memphis’ airport board and those of other cities across the state, and gave the state attorney general, also a Republican, the power to remove Memphis' elected district attorney.

“The state legislature is trying to take it over,” said U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, the white Democrat who still represents the city in Congress until the new lines kick in after the midterms. “And that’s absurd. It was all partially because it’s a majority Black city.”

Thomas Goodman, a politics and law professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, notes that the new congressional districts may lead to greater friction over who receives attention — and funding — from lawmakers. Memphis residents will soon share districts with Republican towns with starkly different economies, geographies and demographics. Whoever holds those congressional seats will have an incentive to pay attention to those voters and not to Memphis’ population.

“It would not only deprive Black Tennesseans of proper representation,” Goodman said. “These changes also break up the city of Memphis as an entity into multiple districts, thereby removing a dedicated agent in government who knows the people, who understands their concerns and can speak for them and deliver on behalf of their interests and desires.”

Chris Wiley’s house sits in what was, before this week, a quiet street in Midtown Memphis dotted with duplexes, tidy lawns and sports fields. Now his neighborhood is carved apart at the intersection of three congressional districts. That is not surprising, he said, because “Tennessee is all about the dollar” rather than residents.

“Memphis is majority Black, so if you mess with that, what’s the point of even voting in Tennessee?” said Wiley, a 29-year-old sports stadium worker who is Black. “Whatever the congressional numbers, whatever that is, we don’t count on the scale as high, anyway.”

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and AP videojournalist Sophie Bates contributed to this report.

Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., of Memphis stands outside a House hearing room during a special session of the state legislature to redraw U.S. Congressional voting maps Wednesday, May 6, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

A person leaves the state Capitol after a special session of the state legislature to redraw U.S. Congressional voting maps Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

Steve Fowler, a Beale Street musician whose street was bisected by Tennessee's new congressional districts, strums the guitar in his front yard on Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

Steve Fowler, left, and Sam Wilson, right, rehearse with their band on Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)

A portion of Shotwell Street in Memphis, Tenn., that is now a dividing line between two newly-redrawn congressional districts, is seen Thursday, May 7, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Sophie Bates)